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This item is a recording of a meeting of CEESSA. Discussions include the question of Hungarian and other courses at the university, the constitution and procedures of the committee, membership dues, and the name of the society.
Department of Education set up a committee on curriculum development but will there be ethnic content or just Canadian? “Units” of studies: “Ethnic mosaic” and “Alberta”. Making sure the ethnic groups get recognition in the history of Western Canada. Working together with Heritage Council History of Western Canada discriminates certain ethnic groups. Some Social Studies programs need to be revised.
Important feature – sizable new groups of immigrants from Eastern Europe. Travel concerns to those countries.
80% of Germans in Alberta are from Eastern Europe. Up to 40% of Alberta population is from Continental Europe

This item contains a recording of a meeting. Items discussed included: course offerings and attracting students. Ukrainian course + one suitable for the Women’s Studies. With funding, a specialist in Siberia from Calgary could come and teach - Department of Northern Affairs might be interested in it. Also discussed a need for establishing the Standing and Ad Hoc Committee. Financial and Budget Committee doing space allocation and money allocation – under the jurisdiction of the Head of
the Department. Discussing equipment matters.

This item is a recording from Banff conference of CEESSA

(Session #18): Chairman is [Andre] Tari
Only 2 sessions were allocated for the community topic
Mrs. Pelech talking about Sunday school
[Czartoryski?] talking about cultural heritage
Duska speaking about educational needs
Dudaravicius talking about identity

Dudaravicious’ presentation: identity as subjective sense of belonging in groups. Canadian identity is multiculturalism. Forcing immigrants to conform to the Anglo-Saxon or French identities., to forget their mother tongue and dances.

Mrs. Pelech: Saturday schools get grants. They are needed to preserve cultural group’s true history and provide information about it. Participants of those schools need pride and motivation. There are people-parasites who are not interested in anything except pleasures. Regular school and Saturday one compliment each other and does not compete. They teach respect to ethno-cultural heritage and be proud of it; they motivate youth for a healthy life outlook. Media and parents do not anymore encourage to learn. Edmonton school board is cooperative. Recommendation for the UofA to prepare teachers for language classes, especially in native languages. Languages should be compulsory at the university level.

Mr. Duska: Teaching our young people respect for their cultural heritage will help them respect other Canadians. We should keep children busy learning and off the streets. There is no single program at Canadian universities for Hungarian studies. Provincial governments refused to help. There was a suggestion to establish an endowment fund. Hungarians campaign to promote own language/culture at a university level.

Mr. [Czartoryski?], Executive Director of CEESSA, talking about maintaining cultural heritage. Academics, people with higher education have an obligation to go back to the communities and help with higher level of education. Academics are often accused by the community members. 30% of Alberta population are of East European background. Canadian schools struggle to develop in their students certain values.

Session 2:
Panelists: Dr. Chandler; Don [Benge] from Saskatchewan, Director of the Curriculum of the Edmonton Public School Board; Don Massey; Arthur Levin; Dean Lock; Mrs. Lobay

Dr. Chandler: Department of Education develops programs but does not build the books, about ethnic groups in particular. CEESSA’s objectives and the Department of Education’s objective can coincide and they can help each other with regards to the materials that are down to the level of the elementary children. The nature of multicultural education is beneficial and enriching for everyone. Opportunities in the curriculum for ethnic studies: good balance between Canadian studies and global studies, studies of the past and contemporary studies. Curriculum becomes more compulsory if certain goals are specifically identified. Tentative outline: grade 1 program about family should look at families of different ethnic backgrounds; grade 2 – groups that influence you. Should include what children should learn about various ethnic groups; grade 3 – communities; should take a look at communities with different ethnic cultures within Canada; grade 5 – Canada as a whole, should look at immigration and settlement in Canada; grade 7 – study of cultures in general, should look at native people in Canada and their relationship to the multicultural nature of Canada; grade 8 – study of developing nations in the World, should look at immigration policy of Canada; grade 10 – study of Canadian economic and political problems, should look at how multiculturalism adds to national unity. A Committee set up to develop materials for the program, and CEESSA should contact the Committee.

A motion to form a National Society

This item is an audio file containing the very last moment of Mr. Schmid's address, applause , and Mr. Agust Osis- his common prayer concludes the conference of CEESSA of 1977.

This item is a recording of an interview conducted with Fred Zebrun, who immigrated to Canada in 1928 from the Province of Grodno, village of [Kruzhana]. About 700 people came from his village to Canada but they all spread out across Canada. He talks about the places he lived in Canada before eventually living in Calgary. He speaks a bit about the Russian speaking population in Calgary and the Russian Federation in Canada.

This item is an interview with Rob Androschuk and an unknown female. Mr. Androschuk discusses being an officer in the Russian Army and what it was like living during this time period. The unidentified female also talks about living through WWI.

This item contains an interview with Pastor Dusterhoff. Pastor was born on December 11, 1897, in a colony [Niedernstine] in the Novohrad-Volynsk district. Both parents were born there too. His great-grandfather settled there around 1855-1860 coming from Poland, from Radom. They were from Posen in Eastern Prussia originally. Polish nobility rented/sold them the land. His great-grandfather had 40 desiatyn of good land. They had mixed farming. He has been a pastor for 52 years in Western Canada, 51 of them in Alberta. He discusses how he came to Canada and how he became a pastor, as well as the German Moravian congregation in the Leduc area.

This item contains recordings of three interviews. The first interview is with Petrea Mihalchan. Petrea was a Romanian From Boiani, Bukovina, born in 1892. He left Boiani in 1909 and came to Vegreville, Alberta. Petrea talks about immigration and his life in Canada.
The second interview is with an unidentified couple. The interviewer speaks Ukrainian and some English. The interviewed man is a Belorussian who speaks some sort of "Ukrainianized" Belorusian with many Russian words. The woman is Ukrainian but has been born in Canada. She speaks Ukrainian with her husband and mostly English with the interviewer. The first part of the
interview is apparently missing. In the interview they discuss language dialects, churches, and the Russian Federation.
The third interview is with 91 year old, Raveta Toma, who left her home of Boiani, Bukovina/Austria in 1899, when she was 13years old. She talks about coming to Canada and her life in Boiani.

This item contains an interviews with Mrs. Lydia Kupsch (nee. Rosnal), a German Russian who was born in Volynia in 1896 before immigrating to Canada in 1902. She talks of life in Russia and then life in Stoney Plain and Bruderheim. She also discusses her husband and her wedding. For part of the interview, there is an older interview being played while people are talking over it.

This item contains an interview with Mrs. Gauss, who was born in 1898, her maiden name was Zeider (Cyder?). Her mother originally
came from Württemberg. Her family was working on the land, were not rich. There were the only Germans in their village besides one shepherd. There was also a Lutheran church and a German school (education lasted 7 years). Children started going to school when they became seven years old. At the age of fifteen there usually was a confirmation and then they were working for their father until they got married and created own family. Her village was in the Melitopol district and there was a school in Eichenfeld. In general there were 32 family entities in the village each of them were farming and producing goods. Collectivization started in 1917-1918. The relationship with Russian people was good. There usually were many seasonal Russian workers in the German village. German children learned German and Russian languages in the school. Most of the Russian language they learned from Russian workers. Not many girls extended their school education as mothers needed them at home for help. There were eight children in her family, some families had ten, some six. Russians usually were very poor, had many children and not much land. Pomeschiki had more land. Mrs Gauss remembers how people once all together bought land from pomeschik and created a village. Germans were forced to go to the Russian army as well. Tsar Nicolai was loved by Germans. There was a school which educated doctors as well. She was 16 years old when the war started, Germans were forced to join the Russian army, many were captured in Germany and afterwards returned back to Russia. Her village didn´t have problems during the war, they had a cooperative and the living was good. She visited Krym once many years later. Memories on her village during the revolution. People came from Moscow, took what they wanted and went further to other villages.

This item contains an interview with Zdzisław Jan Krywkowski, conducted in Stoney Plain, AB on April 19, 1977. The
How did he come to Canada during the war? He came completely legally, from Switzerland where he had been a student. He studied political sciences at the international labor office. Then he came to France, where the so-called 4. Polish division was formed. He never took part in any battle as there were not enough people. He embarked a ship close to Bordeaux in 1940 and arrived in Plymouth. He English were much friendlier than the French from whom the had received no information. As he spoke some English, he went around with a colonel called Koszałkowski Marian. Afterwards, they were brought to Glasgow, then they were living in tents. He spent the whole war in Britain, predominantly in Scotland. He joined the 1. Corps of the Polish Army (the 2. Corps was commanded by General Anders). Among his superiors were General Maćko, his direct superior was Karol Kraćkiewicz (or Kraśkiewicz). In 1944, the worked for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, on Jewish matters. They countered the propaganda (also in the English press) that all Poles are anti-Semites and that they are persecuting the Jews together with the Germans.
His parents remained in Poland, they spent the war there. He calls Włocławek his native city although he was born in Warsaw, but he spent only four years there. His mother was the headmaster of a large school in Włocławek, a former student of her (an ethnic German) warned her after the German invasion in Poland, and his parents relocated to Warsaw. His father spent a part of the war in Żarnów close to Opoczno, his native village. He recalls a family legend that his ancestors came from Ukraine during one of the Cossack uprisings.
Why did he come to Canada? In Scotland, he worked a teacher but his salary was meagre. He had three specialties: history, political science and economics. When he talks about his experiences as a school teacher, the interviewer asked him to switch to English as it will have to translate the interview. He continues in English: He wanted to work in a secondary school. He received an offer from Alberta. In Ontario, he would have had to study for a year at a university, and BC was slow to answer.

This item is an audio recording of an interview conducted with Waldemar Hildebrandt on January 19, 1982. The interview covers the history of Hildebrandt's family living in Radomyshl and Kyiv area and his membership in the Komsomol Youth organization before the war (side a). The interview also covers his involvement in WWII, first as a member of the Soviet Army and then the German Army and then as a Prisoner of War, before becoming a cook for the American Army (side b).

This file contains an interview with Tom Peterson that was conducted in English on October 4, 1976. Tom Peterson was 77 years old at the time of the interview. He immigrated to Canada from Latvia, arriving at the end of April 1928. He first settled at Pigeon Lake in 1929. During the interview he talks about his process of immigrating and learning English, and meeting other Latvians in Edmonton. He purchased his homestead from the CP and his wife joined him in Canada 6 months later. They farmed until 1951, when he gave his land to his eldest son and moved to Edmonton to become a decorator. He was very active in the Latvian community and discusses this involvement and the immigration and development of Latvians in Canada. Aside from his family and the Latvian community, Tom also discusses politics in the 1930s and 1970s.

This item is an interview conducted on June 15, 1981. Veronica Whitfield interviewed Mr. Herklotz. Mer. Herklotz talks about his family, being in the Soviet Army in WWII, and coming to Canada in 1948 and learning English.